[iup=3571916]elite knight danbo[/iup] wrote:Every Scottish Labour voter who goes SNP/Green/SSP as a result of this referendum and what comes after it is a small victory. Demands for a recount and the notion of a UDI are pretty much trash, though.

The big question for me right now is media. I think they were ridiculously biased, and while this doesn't invalidate the result or something bonkers like that, we need to figure out what we can do about it - that same bias will be a massive obstacle in trying to get anything positive done even within the devolution we currently have. (Devolve the BBC!)

Also I'd like a scottish politics thread on GR plz

An independent Scotland would have been a poor Scotland. There's no bias in reporting this. Salmond's plan for an independent Scotland was massively flawed. There's no bias in reporting this.

The whole thing seemed to be based entirely on Scottish exceptionalism.

Independence might be the best for Scotland in the future, but that time is not now.

[iup=3571916]elite knight danbo[/iup] wrote:Every Scottish Labour voter who goes SNP/Green/SSP as a result of this referendum and what comes after it is a small victory. Demands for a recount and the notion of a UDI are pretty much trash, though.

The big question for me right now is media. I think they were ridiculously biased, and while this doesn't invalidate the result or something bonkers like that, we need to figure out what we can do about it - that same bias will be a massive obstacle in trying to get anything positive done even within the devolution we currently have. (Devolve the BBC!)

Also I'd like a scottish politics thread on GR plz

An independent Scotland would have been a poor Scotland. There's no bias in reporting this. Salmond's plan for an independent Scotland was massively flawed. There's no bias in reporting this.

The whole thing seemed to be based entirely on Scottish exceptionalism.

Independence might be the best for Scotland in the future, but that time is not now.

[iup=3571945]Bigerich[/iup] wrote:An independent Scotland would have been a poor Scotland. There's no bias in reporting this. Salmond's plan for an independent Scotland was massively flawed. There's no bias in reporting this.

Sure. But bias is about what's not reported just as much as what is reported. Here's one example, I could give a hundred more :

The big three-party "vow" for more powers that most of the papers reported on is already being stifled and smothered. Miliband has already dropped out of supporting Cameron's notions. It was clear from the moment this was mentioned that these were statements made on a party level, not a parliamentary level, making this sort of thing inevitable and unavoidable. The papers reported on this without blinking, when they should have completely called it out with as much gusto as they do when Salmond insisted there'd a currency union.

This was as much about two differing visions of this country as it was about parties and politicians. Both should be scrutinized. One wasn't as much as the other, at least not in Scottish media. That is bias, and when it's related to a vote that came as close as it did it is the media not acting in the interests of the people.

It seems fairly clear to me that the media were (and are) biased in favour of No.

Specifically, I feel the BBC made an honest effort towards, and ultimately did an okay job of, reporting neutrally - with a couple of exceptions, perhaps. Other newspapers and stations were fairly obviously pro-No. I can't think of any outlets at all that were pro-Yes (aside from, I believe, The Scottish Herald, but you don't get that down here).

[iup=3571916]elite knight danbo[/iup] wrote:Every Scottish Labour voter who goes SNP/Green/SSP as a result of this referendum and what comes after it is a small victory. Demands for a recount and the notion of a UDI are pretty much trash, though.

The big question for me right now is media. I think they were ridiculously biased, and while this doesn't invalidate the result or something bonkers like that, we need to figure out what we can do about it - that same bias will be a massive obstacle in trying to get anything positive done even within the devolution we currently have. (Devolve the BBC!)

Also I'd like a scottish politics thread on GR plz

An independent Scotland would have been a poor Scotland. There's no bias in reporting this. Salmond's plan for an independent Scotland was massively flawed. There's no bias in reporting this.

The whole thing seemed to be based entirely on Scottish exceptionalism.

Independence might be the best for Scotland in the future, but that time is not now.

Bullshit everywhere. We'd have been very rich. But money should take a back seat to liberty anyway.

The BBC were shocking. Some people are calling on others to quit the TV licence. As someone who has always been against it, I'm pleased about that.

I thought that Nick Robinson interview gaffe was a poor showing, but on the whole I felt they were the same centrist fence-sitters they always are. Am I wrong? I didn't watch the coverage as religiously as some here, no doubt!

[iup=3572059]Karl[/iup] wrote:It seems fairly clear to me that the media were (and are) biased in favour of No.

Specifically, I feel the BBC made an honest effort towards, and ultimately did an okay job of, reporting neutrally - with a couple of exceptions, perhaps. Other newspapers and stations were fairly obviously pro-No. I can't think of any outlets at all that were pro-Yes (aside from, I believe, The Scottish Herald, but you don't get that down here).

The herald was pro-no, Sunday herald was yes.

I agree about the BBC really. Had so many strawberry floating arguments about that nick Robinson interview. I really don't think it showed any institutional bias, though I do concede it was a pretty poor piece.

I've got a copy of the DM from the day after the results, should see the strawberry floating gloating. The first 20 pages are about how a yes vote would have ruined the country and how everyone who voted yes had gotten carried away and hadn't engaged any critical facilities. Offensive shite basically, same old DM

[iup=3572146]Karl[/iup] wrote:I thought that Nick Robinson interview gaffe was a poor showing, but on the whole I felt they were the same centrist fence-sitters they always are. Am I wrong? I didn't watch the coverage as religiously as some here, no doubt!

Debates over 'how rich?' are trash. Either you think Scotland could economically go it alone or you don't. Any sucking of teeth or concerns about how the common people would be better or worse off are better addressed by the fact that the UK is ridiculously inequal as it currently stands - and when I think of independence, I think more of trying to get away from that than a way to better capitalize on how much oil we have or how much whiskey we sell.

[iup=3572135]Lagamorph[/iup] wrote:And how would you have been 'very rich'? Before you say 'Oil', the money from that must've been spent a dozen times over by the time the Yes Campaign were done.

Whiskey.

Surely you mean "Whisky".

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[iup=3572135]Lagamorph[/iup] wrote:And how would you have been 'very rich'? Before you say 'Oil', the money from that must've been spent a dozen times over by the time the Yes Campaign were done.

Where did all that money go, do you think?

To answer your question - A mixture of having a small population, oil reserves, a trade surplus we could have easily increased, vast renewable energy reserves and water reserves for the future. The only issue was currency. I said in here previously the SNP handled that terribly - they shoulder blame for a lot of No votes because of poor planning.

The UK government knows about the wealth here too, that's why they went crazy when the vote was looking close. Who knew, politicians sometimes care more about money than democracy. And to be honest, financial wealth pales in comparison to democratic wealth - that is, my vote actually counting for anything. None of my votes have ever mattered in the UK sense. I'd take a say over money any day.

[iup=3572135]Lagamorph[/iup] wrote:And how would you have been 'very rich'? Before you say 'Oil', the money from that must've been spent a dozen times over by the time the Yes Campaign were done.

Where did all that money go, do you think?

To answer your question - A mixture of having a small population, oil reserves, a trade surplus we could have easily increased, vast renewable energy reserves and water reserves for the future. The only issue was currency. I said in here previously the SNP handled that terribly - they shoulder blame for a lot of No votes because of poor planning.

The UK government knows about the wealth here too, that's why they went crazy when the vote was looking close. Who knew, politicians sometimes care more about money than democracy. And to be honest, financial wealth pales in comparison to democratic wealth - that is, my vote actually counting for anything. None of my votes have ever mattered in the UK sense. I'd take a say over money any day.

At best the money from oil would have gone into maintaining the status quo. The Yes campaign were massively overestimating how much oil money they had.Most experts agreed that the SNP were overestimating how much Oil was actually left in the North Sea by literally billions of barrels. Shell and BP were also of this opinion and I'd be more inclined to believe their findings in this matter than the SNP.There was also no guarantee of just how much of the oil revenue Scotland would get to keep. It could have been anywhere from 8% (A share based on Population which is what Westminster wanted) right up to 93% (A share based on geographical position that the SNP wanted). The Yes campaigns figures were based on the geographical share being the outcome (Like much of the Yes campaign they based all of their promises on assumptions rather than actual predictions, see Currency union and EU membership status for further examples), when the reality is that the share would likely have been closer to around the 60-70% mark for Scotland after negotiations.Also, the simple fact of the matter is that Scotland takes more from the UK than it puts in, that has been demonstrated several times in this thread. Part of the revenues from Oil would have been needed just to balance that back out.

Short term, the oil money probably would have been able to maintain things pretty much exactly as they are but it certainly wouldn't have left to everyone in Scotland becoming richer overnight.Long term, it never would have sustained the country or built up enough of a surplus to sustain the country.

[iup=3572487]Lagamorph[/iup] wrote:Also, the simple fact of the matter is that Scotland takes more from the UK than it puts in, that has been demonstrated several times in this thread. Part of the revenues from Oil would have been needed just to balance that back out.

Q: “But isn’t UK government spending higher per person in Scotland?”

A: Yes, it is. But Scotland pays for every penny of that spending and more besides. As the Financial Times article from February points out:

“Although Scotland enjoys public spending well above the UK average – a source of resentment among some in England, Wales and Northern Ireland – the cost to the Treasury is more than outweighed by oil and gas revenues from Scottish waters.”

On average, UK spending is around £1,200 higher per person in Scotland than in the UK as a whole. But on average Scotland sends £1,700 more per person to the UK in taxes. We only get back around 70% of the extra money we send to London. The other 30% is kept by Westminster and spent in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Q: “But doesn’t Scotland get more money spent on it than it generates in tax?”

A: Sort of. In 2011-12, for example, Scotland generated roughly £57bn in tax and had £64.5bn spent on it. But that extra spending isn’t a generous gift from the UK - it’s borrowing, taken out by the UK government in Scotland’s name. It’s not money from the rest of the UK, it’s money from international banks - it becomes part of the massive debt referred to above, and Scotland has to pay it back.

(And we have to pay it even if we didn’t need or want the things it was spent on - like nuclear weapons, the London Olympics and the HS2 railway from London to Birmingham, all of which Scotland pays billions of pounds towards because Westminster claims they’re for the benefit of the whole country.)

And Student's figures seem to be at odds with some other articles like this one,http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... -drop.htmlWhere Scotland pays £800 more per head in tax revenue, but has £1,267 more per head in public spending. You can't really claim that extra money comes from international banks that Scotland has to pay back either when the SNP threw their toys out of their pram and said they wouldn't pay back their share of the debt if they didn't get their own way on currency anyway, instead dumping that debt on the UK even though it was spent in Scotland.There have been other posts earlier in the thread to demonstrate the same point.

[iup=3572502]elite knight danbo[/iup] wrote:

[iup=3572487]Lagamorph[/iup] wrote:[...] the reality is that the share would likely have been closer to around the 60-70% mark for Scotland after negotiations.

Where is that figure from?

It's a rough estimate based on negotiations taking place over the split. Westminster would never get Scotland to be left with only an 8% share based on population, but at the same time it's extremely unlikely that Scotland would get the full 90%+ either.

[iup=3572146]Karl[/iup] wrote:I thought that Nick Robinson interview gaffe was a poor showing, but on the whole I felt they were the same centrist fence-sitters they always are. Am I wrong? I didn't watch the coverage as religiously as some here, no doubt!

Thank you for linking this, Danbo. It was really interesting to see a proper academic study into this. As a (in general terms) supporter of the BBC I'm really saddened and disappointed that the BBC chose to suppress this criticism.